Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community

Describes feelings while leaving home – Vic Takemoto (OH0015)

Transcript

We had to get up pretty early. I think the army trucks came by, oh, about seven–thirty, eight o’clock in the morning and picked us up. And in our case, it was… they just picked up our family and took us down to the ferry. But most everyone was already there when we got there so they must have had a lot of army trucks to round everyone up. And looked like everything was going pretty smoothly, no riots or anything. We did have some of our, our friends were down there to send us off. Some were in Seattle, they were on the overpass over Western Avenue. There was a few families that had friends up above. While we were boarding the train, they would be waving to us.

Video Interview — October, 2007
To see this interview in its entirety, go to the Densho website archives. You will have to register to be allowed access to their archives. Once in the archive, visit the Visual History Collections: Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community Collection.

Vic Takemoto

Victor Takemoto was 15 years old and in the ninth grade when he and his family were evacuated. He is the oldest of six siblings, five boys and one girl. The Takemoto family stayed in Manzanar during the entire war and was the first family to return to Bainbridge Island after the war.